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Carl Friedrich Gauss
Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and applied physicist who is commonly referred to as the Prince of Mathematics. Early Years Carl Gauss was born on the 30th of April 1777. His mother never recorded his date of birth, so he had to work it out using mathematics. He was a child prodigy. A famous anecdote about Gauss talks about how his teacher told him to add the numbers 1 to 100 up and how he managed to solve it in a matter of seconds. Later, Johann Christian Martin Bartels discovered his intellect and brought him in front of the Duke. He rediscovered many important theorems in the time of his tertiary education. His first major breakthroughs occurred when he was only 19. He discovered constructible polygons' relationship to Fermat primes, he proved the quadratic reciprocity law and was the first one to do it, which would be a huge breakthrough for anyone, let alone a 19-year-old. As well as this, he proved part of Fermat's Polygonal Number Theorem (the triangular part) with the word "Eureka!" scribbled down in his notebook. He also wrote down a proof for the famous prime number theorem, which he never published. This all happened in one year. While he was 22, he proved the fundamental theorem of algebra and was the first to do so. He published a book called Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, which included major breakthroughs in number theory, including his quadratic reciprocity law proofs and his Constructible Polygons Law proof. Middle Years When Gauss was 23, a dwarf planet Ceres had been found by an astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi. However, he lost the planet and could not find it. Gauss heard about this, as well as many mathematicians, and tried to solve the problem. He worked on it for three months, like many other mathematicians and scientists, and even though he was very young, he managed to predict the position of Ceres very accurately. He had to use conic sections in order to figure it out. His work was very much appreciated. Following this, Gauss began to work on other mathematics and science involving planets. He discovered and utilised the concept of Gaussian distribution when he was 28 and also discovered the Gauss-Markov theorem. When he was 41, he invented the heliotrope, a machine which used Gauss' mathematics to project light to far-off distances. When Gauss was 52, when the notion of non-Euclidean geometry was discovered by Janos Bolyai, he claimed to have discovered it years before him. Gauss proved this by referring to very old letters which he had sent a long time ago that discussed the concept of non-Euclidean geometry. Later that year, Gauss discovered Gaussian curvature, which led to the Theorema Egregium, which was a very important theorem that discussed differential geometry and curvature. When Gauss was 54, he discovered important information about magnetism. Later Years When Gauss was sixty-three, he published his last book: Dioptrische Untersuchungen. It contained information about Gaussian optics and cardinal geometry. Carl Gauss' brain was preserved after his death in 1855. It was found to be rather convoluted. His grave is in the Albanifriedhof cemetery. Category:Carl Friedrich Gauss Category:Mathematicians